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Somewhere on the corner of creativity and the truly bizarre sits this little game that can be found on itch.io. I have never played any games where I was just a single flying body part, but this is surely a whole lot better than some games where you play the disembodied head of an ancient samurai warrior. Granted, this game is not a shooter, it’s just a simple little timed game where you have to get to the end of zones. And it’s not easy.

Controlling Terrance is pretty easy: just hit the arrows or the WASD keys, whatever your preference. He doesn’t stop immediately, so you have to prepare for a little bit of fishtailing. You’ll guide Terrance through small obstacle courses filled with all manner of bizarre and inventive dangers.

Just don’t touch ’em, just don’t touch ’em..

If I were actually Terrance I would be a neurotic mess. Without explanation and, from what I can tell, shortly after his creation in a lab, this little eye has to face some pretty harrowing obstacles seemingly crafted for him. First, there are electrified walls and blocks that disappear when you run into them; they’re the orange ones. These wouldn’t be so bad, but then at some point there are these purple mines that come into play. Tap one and you have 3 seconds to vacate the area or be zapped to death by purple plasma. Each time you die, you are sent back to the beginning of the level, which makes me wonder: are you one eyeball or do they just create another? Each level is filled with equipment and what seems to be some Looney Toons version of measuring devices in the background, so maybe this is a series of test chambers not unlike those in Portal?

Each level ups the ante on level of challenge, too. I am still having trouble getting to the end of the second zone. See, there are these plasma-shooting blaster things, and after a while, they home in on you and fire a lot faster. At one point, I have to break through these glass tubes in order to progress with the blaster shooting like there’s no tomorrow behind me. If you run into it directly, you bounce just far enough back that you’ll get zapped, so you have to run into it and use the momentum to get you past the plasma balls. You will not be at a loss for a challenge.

As far as a game goes though, especially one on itch.io, you really can’t do better. The art here is fantastic, resembling a sort of Dexter’s Laboratory feel. For those of you not familiar with the old Cartoon Network tv show: it’s smooth and very professional-looking. Terrance the Flying Eyeball is a game that focuses more on timing and skill than other game elements. If you’re looking for a fun play with a simple concept to give you a break from all those deep gaming experiences that crowd the popular platforms these days, you could do worse than Terrance. The music is peppy and fun, the gameplay is fluid and easy to pick up. If you don’t get some enjoyment out of playing this game, even for a little bit, then you might just be expecting too much out of your games. Hell, the game doesn’t even cost that much. You can pay what you want for the game. Mind you, this is a title that has a some work in it, so leave a few notes in the till, please. I would say this game is worth at least 5$. If more indie devs put out games like this, competition in indie games would be even closer than it already is. Terrance feels like a game from a game jam and is just as delightfully creative.

After years of neglect and self-hatred, Mavis Beacon of typist teaching fame decided to grow a mohawk, dye it green and donned her studded leather jacket. She stole the Doc Brown’s Delorian before the 90’s ended, went through dimensions to a time where the 80’s were the space-age and began her conquest. Now she has returned to wreak havoc on mousepads worldwide, and the effect is devastating. Ok, so that’s not the story behind this game, but with all the anger and rage it created, you would think I was playing Dark Souls or something. You can visit the Point Perfect website here. By the way, young’n’s: the device stealing that child’s youth in the picture is a CRT monitor circa 1998.

This is not a game for the feint of heart. It is the most challenging thing I have played yet this year. Simple enough idea with some goofy pixel art to provide a story. There is a world of people that use mouse cursors to fly through space. They are attacked by aliens and space invaders, zooming into action. You are this world’s elite pilot and you must rise to the occasion or retire your peripherals.

Prepare yourself, brave hero.

From the very start, you get the feeling this isn’t going to be an easy ride. You have to choose between an increasing number of trophies, but the first three are a wider targeting range, increased points and three lives. THREE FUCKING LIVES! You have to choose between a buff or the basic 3 lives! Needless to say, I always chose the three lives because I knew I would never make it without the extra lives. And there aren’t even any extra life pick-ups (that I’ve encountered) in the entire game!

So you are the cursor. You have to move the mouse to dodge enemies. In order to do battle, you have to click and drag to ‘target’ foes. When enemies enter the green field, you release to destroy them. Sounds easy, but fucking try it. To start, you have a smaller targeting field range, but as you get ‘P’ pick-ups your range will increase, opening the opportunity to create larger and larger kill-combos. Your power-ups will show up in the lower left corner, and if you die, they shoot out of you in a demeaning, Sonic the Hedgehog kind of way. If you drag more than your range, your targeting field goes red and no kills are made. All of this has to be done while dodging projectiles and enemies.

In the lower right hand corner you’ll see a weapon box. As you fight your way through the alien armada, you will collect various weapons that help tremendously. My favorite was the shield, which deflects weaker enemy fire – the yellow balls. It won’t block other colors, but that is something. There are all kinds of other weapons that increase points from combos, add points to your overall score and other fun things.

Drag and pray, mother-fucker. Drag and pray.

Of course, with all the challenge this game provides, victory is a sweet, sweet bitch to get. Usually you just manage to kill some enemies, but successfully giving it to bosses must be amazing. I haven’t beaten any yet, but I have come SOOOO close that it was infuriating. This game keeps giving and giving with numerous levels beyond just this starry background. With no introductory info, though, this game is a pain in the ass to grasp. I had it for a month and managed to figure out that I could kill enemies. Yea, I am not a moron, but it just didn’t register to me.

This game is perfectly alright with telling you that you suck.

Fighting enemies isn’t the only thing to do in this either, Point Perfect also has a wide array of little skill games and challenges that provide a welcome respite from the chaotically cluttered masses of foes. Retro graphics and an old school feel are a few more of this title’s strong points, but every element of this game’s design is created to unforgivingly teach players precision and timing. You cannot fullscreen it. So what, you say? This makes it easy to drag off the screen, click other programs and push the game to the background. It is an insane carnival ride of unremitting terrors, but it is the most fun I have ever had cursing relentlessly at my mouse. I almost launched the little fucker undeservingly out the window… I will be waking up in a cold sweat dreaming about this game for weeks to come. I only pity the fool who tries to play this on a track pad. Poor, ignorant bastard. Available on steam for only 4.99$, this game is well worth it, if you think you have the balls. If you think you are man enough, woman enough… Gamer enough.

This game, by Dark Space Games, is definitely a first game. Developers’ debut titles may carry certain elements that come through into the game itself: uncertainty, ambition, fear and paranoia. Hollow Dissent certainly gave the devs a chance to release some of that my shouting into a microphone. While it may have been therapeutic for them, it made my headphones buzz and my ears ring a little. Of course, the fact that this game almost feels like a default game that came with Windows 98 kind of makes the game feel a little silly. Let me explain.

When you start up the campaign, you aren’t given a story as much as you are given what you need to know. Bunch of people on a base are starting to succumb to radiation poisoning and they are losing their minds because of it. Kill them all. Now, I’m no doctor but I am pretty sure that a lead enema isn’t the only treatment for radiation poisoning. This seems suspicious. Alongside the ominous music, this all seems like some kind of plot that I am being thrown into the middle of in hopes that someone can solve a really big fuck up. You play as the wetwork ninja that will move in, eliminate all witnesses and resolve the issue. Ah, mysterious paramilitary organizations, when will you learn?

Turning enemies into anonymous clouds of red mist…

The controls are pretty simple and easy to master: spacebar shoots your rifle, arrow keys move, shift lets you interact with things. Typically you will get through a level after eliminating all foes and get to a door to go to the next level. It is never really specified whether you go up or down, but I always assume down. Then there is the gun. Remember when I mentioned this being a stealth game? Well the main way you kill enemies is by walking over them like a fucking power up. They’ll turn into red mist and give out a groan. I don’t even want to know what this guy has that makes the corpse explode into red mist and even more terrifying is the fact that he never gets covered in enemy residue. If you fire your gun, however, all the enemies in the level hear it and come running.

Who are the enemies in this game? Initially you face the personnel of this facility. The most interesting thing that this game does is make you feel bad for the guards. Let me explain. The two main enemies in this game are the guards and the scientists. The guards are either stationed or patrolling and are ridiculously easy to take out. In a game like this you would have a stationed guard switch his gaze back and forth between different corridors. Not in this game. These guys are practically mechanical meat-puppets that look only where their gun is pointing since that is how shooting works, right?

The other primary enemy you’ll face are the scientists… fucking little scientists. These guys, unlike every other scientist in gaming, have decided to self-arm and start shooting anyone they don’t recognize. This is a bitch. Combined with the fact that they move erratically, they are a serious pain in the ass to take out. On top of that, these guys spend the whole time whimpering and whining about “him” and “they’re gonna find us.” This, combined with the totally forced voice acting for the guards makes the whole game start to slide apart. I mean, the guards literally say things like “target acquired” and “moving to target” like they are a bunch of overweight local policemen playing paintball on a weekend getaway. It’s pretty ridiculous. I am sure even those weekend paintballers manage to sound more convincing.

Not sure why all the scientists are wearing orange-tinted fishbowls on their heads, but whatever…

Why do I feel bad for the guards? They are useless. Seriously. They are doing their jobs, walking back and forth or standing there doing nothing; in some cases they are even facing a wall. This would make sense if there was some kind of viewing window, but walking right up to them on the opposite side of the wall from where they are stationed results in staying hidden. These guys are doing their jobs and continue to do so despite the fact that the scientists, who are supposed to be far more intelligent, start losing their shit and packing heat. The guards even come running if they hear a gun shot like it might not just be one of the damn scientists giving into their insanity and killing themselves. What with all their whimpering and bitching, I would have just ordered the R & D team be euthanized. I wouldn’t even resist the main character, I would be helping him.

Then, about 4 levels down (or up, I am not really sure which) you run into a new foe. These are some kind of groaning, grumbling comet-ghost creatures that can pass through walls, but they only move when you fire your weapon. You can walk right up to them and they just stare right through you. Shooting at them is totally useless, so you have to just get past them to finish the level. The devs seem to favor putting these fuckers near the exits, forcing you to fire your weapon to get them to come after you… away from the door. These ghosts don’t seem to affect the guards in the least bit but, entertainingly enough, the scientists splatter upon contact with these things.

Man, the flooring in this room is making me see some weirs ass shit…

Don’t get me wrong. This game isn’t terrible, but there is much that could have been done to improve it. Ambiance is held together by the grace of a solid soundtrack and decent graphics. Your character looks like someone took a silhouette of a swat cop, put blue arm bands on him and said “fuck details.” Guards are all the same little guy holding a pistol with a red dot and the scientists are the erratic little guys with the orange fishbowls on their heads. This all kind of adds to the ghosts being a little more creepy when you run into them. Everything already has an ambiguous look to it, but now you have these ghosts that are just all kinds of fucked up.

Level graphics are painfully simple and cookie cutter-styled. Walls all look exactly the same, and every couple of levels the floor changes design; this would be ok if there were some explanation or pattern, but it goes from stone to riveted metal to castle flagstones so fast that after a while it is just as annoying as the scientists. Story is delivered in the form of computer consoles that are placed randomly throughout the game. Through the computers your character communicates with his employers, but this is very very vague and cryptic at every turn. We have to guess at what is even being discussed at times since there is no internal monologue about anything. If I saw a comet ghost when I thought I would be stabbing blood-puppets for the next three hours, I would stop to consider my circumstances for a moment. I am pretty sure I passed by a terminal at some point, too, but it seems that you can go up the next level before finding the consoles, so those aren’t even entirely necessary.

Where’s a proton pack when you need one?

If you are jonsing for a good stealth game that challenges you in your stealthiness, you could do a lot worse than this. Hollow Dissent still accomplishes what it sets out to do in that regard, but it wouldn’t be my first resort. I am also not going to say that the 5.99$ asking price on the Darkspace Games website is entirely worthwhile, but here are some suggestions on how to make this game worth a little more than that:

Add in a few gadgets and, perhaps, a silencer. Something more than just a gun and walk-over stealth kills. The walk-over stealth kills would be alright if the guards looked around a little bit. Add in some darkness and give guards and scientists flashlights. This will act to show you where they are looking and add more spooky ambiance to the game. Don’t make the ghosts glow, but perhaps add in a radar that pings gently as their groans draw closer in the darkness. That is something the last Alien game did well, even if the only thing. Put a little more variation in the walls. Please. Maybe little windows that stationed guards can look through. It will add another obstacle and way to get detected. These levels feel less like any kind of facility and more like mini-mazes to house a few meat sacks. A little decoration could go a long way. I don’t rate things, but that would take what is currently 40% of a decent game and punch it right up to 75% maybe even 80%. I could pay 10$ for that comfortably. And, please, get a better voice actor. I could do it for you, I was in the army for two years. I know what convincing “report” language sounds like.

I am going to do this in narrative format as everyone pretty much knows everything I am going to say. This is no longer news: it’s now just turning into an epic journey. One that had a start in suppression and is now a roaring blaze that is scorching the internet. This is how I am imagining the unfolding conflict between the SJW standard and the #GamerGate army. Because, let’s face it, we are an army. If this doesn’t appeal to you: Step One. Read my About Page. Step Two. Fuck off. Step Three. Eat a comfort twinkie. For all the rest, shit is about to get crazy. More real gaming and reviews coming this week. Promise ; )

“I told you fuckers, the frontline needs reinforcements!” Just hours after falling back from their home turf, the denizens of the Clover Nation were hot on seeking a new stronghold. As Vivian determined ahead of time, planning for the fall of the Clover was necessary. Rumors abounded long ago of SJW soldiers slowly infiltrating the nation, but now its halls, always far from sacred, had fallen and bent its knee to oppression. Vivian watched out of the back of the MRAP as explosions rocked the places she had known in her infancy: V Plaza, Pol Street… But now those talking on the wrong topics were silenced, exiled and worse. The Clover Nation had long been an independent sovereignty, but the streets, where one could discuss any topic without fear of reproach, now flooded with crowds of refugees; all of them making haste for the borders before the last mines are laid. No one knew if they’d return home, and few even cared. Fine Young Capitalists everywhere walked away from the Clover nation as it began to silence its own people.

Vivian looked over the statistics of the initial battles. The Axis of Social Strengthening, headed by The Peoples’ Republic of Kotaku, The Gamasutra Federation and the Ars Technica Empire, had pulled together with countless others of their kind, even pulling in international support from the America press: their words of victimization echoed in The Boston Globe and The New Yorker’s stygian type. But not all was lost. In fact, more and more champions broke away from their own engagements to support the cause of the rebels. Among them one would find such fine warriors as The Hero of Canton, who earned the support of many an undecided soldier. His words with various reporters inspired many and amplified the voice of the Internet Aristocracy. Even a man known as Biscuit has come out to talk about the situation and facilitate discussion in an open format. The Regal Patriarchy of Shotgun took massive losses, The Gamasutra Federation lost 224 legionnaires in its latest conflicts. The Peoples’ Republic of Kotaku was taking strong blows, but as the leader of the Axis, it was maintaining its stranglehold. The Polygon Primacy was also maintaining its footing, but was still sustaining border raids that tried its army’s mettle.

Amidst her strategic ruminations, the direct line buzzed. It was Breitbart. “The operation is a roaring success,” Bart’s voice shouted into his receiver. Their strongholds were now under fire. “a broader audience now has factsheets on the greater issues within the movement! I will seek…” the line cut dead before Viv could respond.

“Dammit!” Vivian roared and slammed the handset back onto its cradle. Outside, the booming of mortar fire against the keep rocked her extemporaneous CIC within The Escapist Confederacy. When the exodus was ordered, Vivian made sure many escaped. Some were trapped in various harrying assaults, but the spirit of the people prevailed in so many ways, and many lives were spared. But many more fell. Above Viv knew that the SJW’s were pounding the fortress with withering fire. The Confederacy wasn’t the best place to hunker down, but the convoys were reconnoitered and harried by the SJW’s. While the main force pushed on toward the Eighth Kingdom, what was a supply bivouac became ground zero. But why?

Throughout the embattled Confederacy fortress, lights died and electricity flipped off. Vivian’s feeds and monitors went silent and the walls held their breath. She listened carefully as the explosive hail winnowed her forces, but she knew they reciprocated with an untold fury. God how she loved the gamers: her fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. As the dark seemed to grow confident, the lights flicked back on and hurried boots were heard on the stairs. Vivian grabbed her Colt .45 and machete. She loved the old blade, and it never had to reload. A sequential order of knocks brought her guard down. It was Archon.

“Enter.” was her relieving reply. Archon slipped in and shut the door tightly behind him. He rounded and cleared his throat tersely.

“I don’t mind sheltering you here, Ms James, but once the SJW barricades are torched, we have to address your exit strategy. You have to get to the Eighth Kingdom. They are crude, I know, but theirs is an anonymous anarchy. Only there can you be safe. Only there can you dig in amongst the chaos and keep the SJW’s at bay.”

“Save it, Archon. This was only supposed to be a small operation.” Vivian’s velvet tones were clad in a terse verbal armor. “The second we can, I want to take all the readouts and final compiled information with us to the Eigth Kingdom.” Archon stood tacitly assessing the disarray of the CIC. “Why did you come down here, anyway? Just to be a good landlord and make sure I emptied the fridge?” her eyes had a way of going cold and soft.

“No, I came to give you this. It’s…”

“The list. The same list we shared with Breitbart. The Pros list.”

“The very one. Make them fear our name.” Vivian looked down at the flash drive then clicked her gaze back into Archon’s.

Like this:

When I was a kid, my friend would come over with a copy of Road Rash for Sega Genesis. We’d race for hours while beating each other over the head with any number of clubbed and bladed implements. Ah, the joys of youth! It has been many years since and I hadn’t even heard the name of this spoken, and I had begun to wonder if it was ever real at all. I played Twisted Metal on the Playstation and any number of other games that tried to emulate it, but none that tried to recreate the balls-to-the-wall motorcycle racing gauntlet that was Road Rash. Then yesterday, it happened. I heard of a projecton Kickstarter that was to emulate this game, and it had already reached its funding goal. Its name was Road Redemption.

In this title, you will be playing a Katana-clad member of a mid-western America motorcycle gang. You have to move your way up in the ranks and take control of drug trading routes. It’s a visceral title that will actually hit harder than its spiritual predecessor. Thing is, it won’t be made by the same people that made Road Rash. In fact, a lot of these developers grew up playing games on the same systems I did, so they remember the good old days of games that make you earn their respect rather than the spoon-fed titles of today.

Who says real badasses never look back at an explosion?

This looks like a title that will take esports to an awesome new level and bring people away from their Xboxes and Call of Duty. You’ll earn money by racing, sure, but if I can wield a shotgun on a motorcycle, why would I just want to race all the time? Luckily there will also be assassinations, robberies and other challenges. Getting the goods will allow you to level your character, buy better hardware and upgrade your bike so you can really take on the tough guys.

The storyline is a sort of made-in-America Mad Max routine. You are part of stated motorcycle gang in post-apocalyptic mid-west America, and the country is run by a ruthless dictator. You gang-leader decides that it would be a great idea to ride into the capital with the intent of killing the dictator. I guess it doesn’t go too well, since the game description implies heavily that shit hits the fan for you and everyone you know. You then have to track this guy down and, pending his judgment at the gang’s hands, decide what to do about the whole dictator situation.

Flying blurry men never did know how to ride bikes well…

One of the more vague features of this game comes with the life-system. There will be no extra lives, but the experience, gear and upgrades you earn should stick with you. What does this mean? Fuck if I know, but I guess you have a lot of family members who are willing to step up and take over your cause. You’re probably from one of those massive Irish-Catholic families you see all over television. What’s more is that multi-player mode will be all about you building your gang and then taking to the internet where you will join up with or against your friends. Hey, competition is just as much fun as working together, sometimes. Personally, I cannot wait to throw someone under a bus.. fucking literally!

The best part about all of this? Road Redemption comes out tomorrow on Steam as Early Access. So get those bike helmets ready. We’re info for one hell of a ride. Get ready for the best rash you’ve ever seen!

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in The Forest, you run like a Kenyan or die like a dog. In fact, I am pretty sure most dogs have better deaths, but I am not here to debate that shit with you. The Forest is fucking brutal, and you feel it every bleeding second. It starts with your character pulling himself from a plane crash covered in blood and it ends… well.. I haven’t seen it end happily yet. But the title screen shows two heads tied up on a stake with intestines that connect through the mouths and wraps around the necks. And they are upside down. Yea, shit gets nasty. This game is also in pre-release, so remember that there is a lot that is still missing.

At the start you are on a plane ride from a presumably civilized location to god knows where when the plane is ripped in half rather suddenly. It’s not exactly like there is a fucking smidgen of turbulence, just a loud bang like something hits the plane. I am going to venture a guess here and say that someone threw a homing spear and it tore the plane in half. With all the bodies and everything that seem to litter the forest, the locals have some kind of vastly successful marketing campaign that lures in hapless morons so they don’t go hungry. Cause cannibals can’t eat each other! That’s how they get diseases! On the plane with you is a little kid. He is cuddling your arm until the plane breaks apart, then he is white-knuckling the arm rests. When you come to, you are laying in the aisle and this mostly-naked wildman is standing over the kid. No worries, he picks up the kid’s bloodied body and carries him off into the untamed wilderness. It’s ok, though. Plenty of happy-endings start that way, right? I am sure he ends up in a Disney-Pixar plot line where his father’s death in the plane crash is the tear-jerking opening. And the fucked up reality is that I am really fighting cannibals and mutants in the woods for years to come. Magical.

Don’t worry, kid. It’s more aero-dynamic without the front! We’ll just get there faster!

Once you are able to get up, you need to look around you. This is likely the last solid chance you get to search the wreck. All about you there is soda, booze, some food and a cellphone. This cellphone is very important because it sets a keynote for what useless, shitty inventory items look like. It doesn’t really do anything except tell you the weather, the temperature and how far you’ve walked. Let me repeat that: In a game where you spend your time OUTSIDE IN THE FUCKING WILDERNESS you are given a goddamn cellphone – a separately programmed mechanic – that tells you if you are cold and what the weather is like. Of course, that step-counting feature is the major point, I think. It lets you know just how many steps you take to get between the forest line where you cut trees, spot natives and run for your fucking life. Naturally, useless.

Now, I died numerous fucking times right out of the gate. The game tells you to page through a survival guide and see how it might help you, and it does at first, but it fails to mention there are cannibals creeping up behind you preparing to gnaw your ears off. Like chewy little snacks… I started right next to a cannibal village the first few times, and walked right in just like “Hey guys, nice grass huts!” They tore me apart. The second time I kept my distance, and they overwhelmed me before I had the chance to build a fire. Strangely, fire is what keep these loonies at bay. They see it and back off like, “SHIT! He has gypsy magic!!” Before getting the fire together, though, the guide has you build a little stick shelter to sleep in. This is how you save your game, so it’s important, but don’t sleep right away. You’ll wake up at night with cannibals gnawing on those delicious ears again. The last tutorial shows you two plants: a blueberry bush and a bush with black-colored berries on it. I specify because the first is edible, the second will fucking kill you. Important. And these are not the only edible plants in the game, just two of them. The rest you have to figure out by trial-and-error! And I mean, most survival books are specific to a section of the world or a continent and give you a wide variety of things to eat in those places. Whoever wrote this book just kind of implies that there are other things out there you can and cannot eat: either madly sadistic or profoundly lazy. Not to mention, you can eat certain animals in this game but not others. Why can I eat rabbits and lizards but not the fucking frogs and birds? And why not the shark that washed up on the beach? I know I would be using that for days. Just cook it up really really well and add some salt from distilled seawater. Maybe some seaweed for flavor.

Each year hundreds of people survive in the wilderness – except you. You’re fucked.

This is one of those places that the game is still vastly unfinished. I am sure that there will be more added to this book given time, but right now it is pretty useless for finding food. Your best bet is killing animals for food anyway, clearly not a game made by vegans. Although there is a vegan mode where the cannibals won’t eat you. Makes it a little easier. The primary role of the book is to help you build things. Those ghost-walls you see up there are what happens when you place something. It creates an image of what you are building and you bring materials over to it, building into the image. Really neat, overall. Of course, you need to be careful where you place things. A ghost-image cannot be removed right now, not that I could find anyway. Then there is the matter of cancelling an object. Say, you want to build a fire. In your panic to avoid slipping into the stomachs of cannibals, you accidentally select the head-on-a-stake effigy. You’ll have to go back into the book and then exit or select something else to cancel the head. Now I was panicked, and that is the story of how I got a head-on-a-stake next to my cooking pit. It’s a little unsettling, but it’s a great conversational piece that adds seasoning to my skinned rabbits and lizards. The most frustrating element of building is you have to look back into the book every time you want to plan out a section of wall or build a fire. This makes sense the first time, but it gets old after the thousandth fucking time. I would have memorized the best method for building a fire after having to read the book a bazillion times. Early on all your construction should be fueled by soda and candy bars you got from the crash and luggage around it. This gives you food and energy enough to get a good bit of a citadel plannedand built before the cannibals become too much of a problem.

O, yea, effigies? That shit is fucked up. One way to keep cannibals at bay aside from filling your camp with campfires is to set up little effigies. Effigy is a nice term though. Really, you are creating survivalist outsider art with the limbs of your fallen foes. Fucked up and brutal. The best part is, they only keep the fuckers back as long as they are on fire, which they stay lit for like, an half hour at most? Then there was this problem I had where it was raining almost constantly. So, apparently I am in a sub-tropical rainforest. Those aren’t fucking common, but they exist. This might help me pin point where The Forest takes place. There seem to be no tropical plants that I can determine, and there is a shore. The natives like taking body parts and wearing them like feathers plucked from a peacock. The animals tend to be small and there are a lot of lizards. At first I would think Russia, but there aren’t any wolves and it can’t be Africa since no one is black. That would be racist. Then again, nobody looks asian, but some pacific islanders look white, right? Best guess, this takes place in Oceania, not too far from New Zealand. What likely happened is all the hipsters and vegans banished the meat-eating people to an island and there they went fucking crazy and started eating people. Of course, that was years ago, so they’ve all but forgotten about them except in stories and tales. This is why you find hikers and campsites out here where no one in their right fucking mind could ever consider camping. I assume they are hikers because they are miles from any roads and there aren’t any off-roading jeeps or anything. Then again, they could have come in by plane, given there is a lake nearby and the seashore is accessible.

There is also an interesting crafting system that reminds me of the Zork games where you combine different things to create something else, like a bottle of booze and a rag makes a molotov cocktail. Of course, there aren’t a lot of recipes to figure out at the moment. The survival book naturally doesn’t tell you how to build any of these things, either. I remember reading the military Field Manual on wilderness survival, and that shit is comprehensive. I would have bought a better manual if I were this guy.

Welcome to my home, you can have a seat over by the flaming head-on-a-spike. His name is Wilson.

Of course the cannibals in this game are the early enemies and the source of a lot of fun. Before the mutants come and ruin your life, the cannibals are just funny as shit. First off, they run around shrieking and generally acting like they think they’re zombies. They’re all naked, including the women, so seeing some boobies every once in a while is nice, even if they are weird and dirty. Remember all the booze from earlier? Use a few of those bottles to make molotov cocktails, and let it rip. These things take out cannibals like nobody’s business. You’ll need the rest of the booze to make bombs for use against the mutants. When you die, you also go to this fucking cave full of terrifying shit, but I don’t want to talk about that again. The least the bastards could do is just let you die. It really does say a lot about a game, too, when you can take one guy’s arm and smack his friends to death with it. There is a little problem with killing enemies with fire, though. The enemies will die and their corpses remain standing.. and breathing. You can smash them apart with your axe, and the legs even stay there. Then there are the women. Sometimes you will kill them with fire and they will change from a hairless weirdo to a woman with hair. Then you smash them apart like a blood balloon and their body parts turn into male body parts. It is just a little weird. All the mechanics are there, but the models and art have to catch up. Generally this game screwed up where Minecraft excelled. The Forest chose some spectacular graphics not realizing that all that detail leaves HUGE fucking holes. There are so many graphics bugs in the game that going into them at length is its own fucking essay. Minecraft had crappy graphics that were ridiculous by comparison to other games at the time. But it worked and did its job so well that it is a gaming sensation. The graphics were simple and clean. This allowed the developers to move on to other, more important things, thus Minecraft had more to start with than The Forest. Right now, this is a great game, and 14.99$ on Steam is pretty reasonable for where it is in development. I would wait a bit on this game, though, if you expect a good and complete game. Should you choose to invest right now (and I would advise waiting until it goes on sale again), don’t wander too deep into The Forest and it’s still pretty fun.

I am a huge fan of space shooters, but this one is less a space shooter and more a spaced-out shooter. This is a title I recommend to anyone on LSD or Acid, because it is intense as hell. Of course, I recommend anyone with Photosensitive Seizures avoid this title altogether. I am photosensitive in general and this game made me feel a little nauseous and headachey after about an hour of gameplay.

First, keep in mind that this game is a sort of space shooter. You are in a spaceship and there are wormholes, but that is about the only thing this game has in common with space, real or theoretical. Click the left mouse to fire a stream of plasma and steering is a bit difficult due to low gravity. When you start you are a bit slow, enemies are tough to hit and, if you put the game on insane difficulty as the game instructs, you’ve died a couple of times already. That’s ok, honestly, I have yet to discern any real point to this game outside of “get a fuck load of points.” That is ok, though. It is a good bit of trippy-ass fun.

dashing through outer space in my plasma-shooting ship!

There are three other types of entities in this game aside from you: ghosts, flowers and nom-noms. Everything has a reticule around it in-game, though, so locating them won’t be too too difficult. Your allies are ghosts. These beautiful beings look the way a child might imagine a soul or angel. They have a central orb with fluttering wings and a vaguely defined look. They’re tough to spot with just the naked eye, especially against the shimmering spaces of the game. If you fly through them, you’ll heal your life-bar and gain a speed boost. Finding your life bar is a challenge of its own, but it is the solid bar at the top. The green/red bar on the right of your aiming reticule is your velocity bar. No numbers, just visual approximations. The other entity type is the flowers. These don’t really offer boosts, but they do help you hide from the enemies. They are more defined than the ghosts, and have a colorful interior. I am pretty sure they don’t move, either. They’re like nebulas that keep you from detection. You enemies are nom-noms. These guys look like someone took one of Mario’s Big Chomps, covered him with neon lighting and started a light-stick rave party inside. These guys go around mauling your friends. They eat the ghosts and it’s your task to kill these fuckers. And it is tougher than it sounds, too, even on normal. Aside from chomping down on ghosts, they will also shoot plasma bolts at you. This is frustrating, especially when you start off, since you are slow as shit.

OooOoO! Ghosts are so pretty!

Yes, those are snowflakes in that picture. When I got into the game, after it explained how I play, I went through a wormhole into this area that had a big-ass Christmas tree on a big red ball that throbbed to the pulsating trance of the music. It was cool, especially when it played Christmas music, but it’s FUCKING JULY! Whatever. I guess it has just been a long-ass time since I last played this game.

Now, if you want to speed up from your initial slow-as-sex-in-a-pool-of-molasses speed, you have to either fly through ghosts, which can be tough to manage, or find the power-ups. There are three of these things as well. One boosts your speed, as you might’ve fucking guessed. But it doesn’t just boost your speed, it more than doubles your speed bar, so getting these whenever you can, even if you think you don’t need it is always a good idea. I am pretty sure this will temporarily stack after flying through a ghost, so it will be enough to keep enemy fire off you for a bit. Your next power-up is the power… uh… power-up. This one makes your plasma deal spectacular damage. After grabbing this beast, you’ll mow through nom-noms like nothing. The last one is auto-aim. Just center your reticule on your enemies and let the power-up do the rest. Normally with all the flying about and such, you have to lead your enemies to (hopefully) hit them and land a kill. This power-up makes all that so much easier. Just get them in the dotted circle and they’re toast.

OM NOM NOM!

I said there are wormholes, right? Fly through one of them if you are tired of the area. I was sick of the Christmas-themed area and wanted to get out into the greater game. It was well worth it. I was greeted by a wide range of procedurally(?) generated spaces full of scintillating beauty. I really cannot say enough about that. It says it is a fractal shooter and it really is. Every space is shaped by invisible fractal variables that paint a spectacular picture. The choices of colors are also really nice, but can be headache-inducing. Its look makes Polynomial feel like another game that remembers how we were told games would be “in the future” when we were kids growing up in the 90s or the 80s. This game really is great, and gives you a chance to just zap some dudes, no strings attached. The music often has a highly-required trance feel to it, but sometimes you will get some really elegant piano music that really vibes for you. It’s pleasant. I would call this a really artistic spaced-out shooter that lets you enjoy yourself and really vibe to the music. Well worth a play and I would even say it is well worth the 6.99$ asking price on Steam.

What really pissed me off about this game? Everything is shiny and neon colored, sparkly and pretty. Some fucker hid the goddamn wormhole in the Christmas area, so I was fucking stuck in that section for fucking ever! A lot of times you will find yourself just struggling against the graphics to see anything, and it gets really aggravating at times. They have a map, but it is kind of 2D, so it really feels like it is for the look rather than any kind of useful fucking help what-so-ever. Whatever. I will just go off and play something that makes a lot more sense and requires me to do inane tasks rather than letting me explore shiny and beautiful space-scapes. That should chill me out. Who am I fucking kidding. That will never happen.